The United States will leave the World Health Organization, President Donald Trump said on Monday, claiming the global health agency had mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises.
Trump said the WHO had failed to act independently of “inappropriate political influence by WHO member states” and demanded “unfairly onerous payments” from the United States that were disproportionate to the sums provided by other larger countries, such as China.
“World Health scammed us, everyone scams the United States. It will never happen again,” Trump said as he signed an executive order on the withdrawal, shortly after his inauguration for a second term.
The WHO said on Tuesday it regretted the move by its largest donor country.
“We hope that the United States will reconsider, and we really hope that there will be a constructive dialogue for the benefit of everyone, for the Americans but also for people around the world,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva. .
The measure establishes a 12-month notice period for the United States to leave the United Nations health agency and stop all financial contributions to its work. The United States is by far the largest financial supporter of the WHO, providing about 18 percent of its total funding. WHO's most recent biennial budget, for 2024-2025, was $6.8 billion.
The U.S. departure is likely to put programs across the organization at risk, according to several experts both inside and outside the WHO, particularly those fighting tuberculosis, the world's leading infectious disease killer, as well as the HIV/AIDS and other health emergencies.
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“This is the darkest day for global health that I have ever experienced,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “Trump could be sowing the seeds of the next pandemic.”
Trump's order said the administration would cease negotiations on the WHO pandemic treaty while the withdrawal is ongoing. US government personnel working with the WHO will be recalled and reassigned, and the government will seek partners to take over necessary WHO activities, according to the order.
The government will review, rescind and replace the U.S. Global Health Security Strategy 2024 as soon as possible, according to the order.
The WHO's next largest donor is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, although most of that funding goes toward polio eradication. Its executive director, Mark Suzman, said in X that the foundation would continue to defend the goal of strengthening, not weakening, the WHO. The next state donor in terms of mandatory fees and voluntary contributions combined is Germany, which accounts for around three percent of WHO funding.
Germany's health minister said Tuesday that Berlin hoped to dissuade Trump from taking the measure, while the European Union expressed concern.
Asked about Trump's decision, China's Foreign Ministry said at a regular news conference on Tuesday that the WHO's role in global health governance should only be strengthened, not weakened.
“China will continue to support the WHO in fulfilling its responsibilities and deepen international public health cooperation,” said Guo Jiakun, a ministry spokesperson.
Trump's withdrawal from the WHO is not unexpected. He moved to leave the body in 2020, during his first term as president, accusing the WHO of aiding China's efforts to “deceive the world” about the origins of COVID.
The WHO strongly denies the allegation and says it continues to pressure Beijing to share data determining whether COVID emerged from human contact with infected animals or due to research into similar viruses in a local laboratory.
Under US law, leaving the WHO requires a one-year notice period and payment of outstanding fees. Before the US withdrawal could be completed last time, Joe Biden won the presidential election, ending it on his first day in office, January 20, 2021.
–Reporting by Patrick Wingrove, Jennifer Rigby and Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Lewis Jackson in Beijing; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Saad Sayeed, Kate Mayberry and Tomasz Janowski